14 years of Mark Zuckerberg saying sorry, not sorry

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Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg?

From the moment the Facebook founder entered the public eye in 2003 for creating a Harvard student hot-or-not rating site, he’s been apologizing. So we collected this abbreviated history of his public mea culpas.

It reads like a record on repeat. Zuckerberg, who made “move fast and break things” his slogan, says sorry for being naive, and then promises solutions such as privacy “controls,” “transparency” and better policy “enforcement.” And then he promises it again the next time. You can track his sorries in orange and promises in blue in the timeline below.

All the while, Facebook’s access to our personal data increases and little changes about the way Zuckerberg handles it. So as Zuckerberg prepares to apologize for the first time in front of Congress, the question that lingers is: What will be different this time?

After criticism of the role of Facebook in spreading fake news about political candidates.

“
I think of Facebook as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through. … Today we’re making it easier to report hoaxes.
”

April 2017

After a Cleveland man posted a video of himself killing 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr.

“
Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Robert Godwin Sr., and we have a lot of work — and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.
”

September 2017

While revealing a nine-step plan to stop nations from using Facebook to interfere in one another’s elections, noting that the amount of “problematic content” found so far is “relatively small.”